Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?
Created: 08/09/17
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My mom advocated gargling with salt water when I had a sore throat, and yes, I do think it worked.
My grandfather had a home remedy for cough that he gave me & my sister one time when he babysat us: Honey & whiskey! Not sure how well it worked on the cough, but I suspect my sister & I slept very well. Needless to say, my mom revoked his sitting rights.
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I agree with what KimK wrote and my most memorable cure was Vicks VaporRub--rubbed on the chest for colds, coughs, sore throats and always covered with a wash cloth pinned like a kerchief. Sure smelled good but I can't remember if it worked! I also remember some black tarry goop that was used to draw out things like boils. Anyone remember what that was called?
Join Date: 02/24/17
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Oh my yes. I was raised in the country in the southeast and home remedies abounded. We were dosed every spring with a concoction that included kerosene, honey and baking soda to "cleanse" our system. If we caught a cold, we were treated with Mentholatum and given hot toddies made of whiskey and sugar. Vinegar for sunburns, spider webs for insect bites or small cuts were a few of the others. Did they work? Don't know but I do know that my siblings and I were the healthiest kids in our classrooms. Of course, we also ate wonderfully with all of the produce from the farm and played (i.e., exercised!) in the fresh air and sunshine all of the time. So, who knows if the actual remedies worked or it was just a matter of healthy living styles.
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My grandfather made a black drawing salve. Yes worked but after he died we lost the formula and probably a fortune. Of course the honey on the spoon with a squeeze of lemon for a sore throat - didn't really work but tasted good
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Judyg and I could have been raised in the same household. That black goop is called Ichthammol ointment and it is still sold (check out Amazon). I was also coved in Vicks, but my mother would wrap a clean pillow case around my neck and use a big pin to keep it there.
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We had to drink apple cider vinegar with honey when we were coming down with a cold..we called it 'poison tea'. Today my kids swear by it! My dad would make my brothers put a cored lemon on a jammed finger. These were nothing like Pavla's!
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Not unless you count ginger ale when we were sick. I believe ginger actually does stimulate the immune system, though I doubt it was superstition or science, but just habit, that led my mother to offer it as comfort, which it was.
But what stands out for me instead, in the superstition and ignorance department: one of my mother's older brothers (she was the youngest of 9 siblings) was a dwarf. This was over a hundred years ago, when he was born and growing up; he was an old man when I knew him. Uncle Bob was allowed to drop out of elementary school, presumably to avoid the social difficulties; he was coddled by his older siblings and their father (my grandmother died when my mom was 7). Eventually he did hold a job as a night watchman in a factory, and he was handy at home, made furniture, kept bees. But he was essentially isolated from society, and with a reputation for crankiness in the family, as I was growing up. He spent most of his time on his own little projects or watching TV, not interacting much even in the family.
When I was old enough to understand and ask questions, my mom always said she felt badly that had he been born in later decades, his condition could have been treated with hormones. I don't know if this is medically accurate, but I do believe that might have made a difference in some ways: she also felt that he shouldn't have been allowed to drop out of school. This was in rural upstate New York, circa 1900-1920. So my uncle's experience was contemporaneous with Pavla's (the physically realistic part of it, at least). I can certainly believe the ignorance of her parents wasn't only a plot device.
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My step mom is from the Phillipines...and she's convinced that vicks vaporub cures just about anything. So, as soon as one of us starts to feel ill, the first words out of her mouth are "You need to put vicks vaporub everywhere".
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